


Sleep

by Daughter_of_the_TARDIS



Series: Remembering A Forgotten Song [8]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 08:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11802210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS/pseuds/Daughter_of_the_TARDIS





	Sleep

The Doctor hated sleeping.

It was a lovely way to recharge the body, of course, but he hated staying still for any amount of time, let alone long enough to actually fall asleep.

It had been a problem for his entire life, but after the Time War it got so much worse. He couldn’t sleep, for fear of waking up to find that he was back in the War. Or to wake up in a blind panic, screaming at the top of his lungs from the horrors that he had seen. He had tried everything - sleeping pills, hypnotism, tea from the markets of Akhaten that guaranteed a restful sleep - but nothing worked.

He didn’t think anything ever would.

8888

When they first married (from his point of view) he refused to fall asleep with her.

He didn’t want her to know just how damaged he was. How much his past had scarred him. 

Because during the day, he could hide. He could jump around, and laugh, and smile, and run. And he could hide how miserable he was - how much guilt he felt. How much pain and suffering he caused.

But at night, he couldn’t hide any longer. He was forced to relive every defeat and death in his dreams - every companion who’s life he ruined, every innocent person that he couldn’t save, and of course, the destruction of Gallifrey, over and over again.

Then there was a night when River got fed up with his coming up with excuses. So she batted her lashes at him, and asked him to at least come and lay with her until she fell asleep. 

Of course, he couldn’t say no to that look of hers, so he let her drag him through the TARDIS into the room that he had just recently learned was theirs. She undressed - and he looked away, blushing furiously - before slipping a nightdress over her head and then pulling him into bed.

He tried to stay as far away from her as possible, but after a few minutes, she just sighed and sat up in bed.

“River, what are you -” he began, but she just put a finger to his lips. 

“Hush, sweetie.” she said, before grabbing him and practically throwing him down on the middle of the bed. 

Then she lay down next to him, and rearranged his body to her liking before laying down herself. They ended up with him as the big spoon, and her back to him. One of his arms was underneath her, holding her waist, and the other was curled around her front, as if he was trying to pull her in closer. Which, he had to admit, may very well be the case. Her big, beautiful space-hair was in his face, but he didn't mind. It was rather…. comforting… to just hold her like this.

That night was the first time that he could remember that the Doctor didn't have one single nightmare.

8888

When they first married (from her point of view) she refused to fall asleep next to him.

She didn’t want him to know just how damaged she was. How much her past had scarred her. She had spent at least two regenerations - even she wasn’t sure exactly how long - under the care of the Silence and Madame Kovarian, and because of that she would wake up screaming more times than not.

So she kept coming up with excuses - everything from, “I'm not tired, sweetie,” to “What if Mum and Dad walk in?” to “I have to get back to Stormcage, Doctor.”

Finally, he got fed up with her excuses after she fell asleep in the middle of an adventure - nearly getting them all killed in the process. 

Afterwards, he practically dragged her back to their bedroom on the TARDIS, telling her that she needed to sleep. Then he pulled on his pyjamas - a TARDIS blue set with white trim - and flopped down on the bed. 

She just stood there for a moment, biting her lip nervously. He rolled over, cracking one eye open to look at her. “Well?” he asked. “Are you coming?”

She nodded, unsure how to proceed. First, of course, she pulled on pyjamas of her own before carefully climbing into bed next to him, keeping a generous distance between them. 

He was already asleep, but she just couldn’t get comfortable. She wanted to toss and turn, but she also didn’t want to wake the sleeping Time Lord. That led to an awkward kind of maneuvering - she would move one limb, before freezing to make sure that she hadn’t accidentally woken her sleeping husband.

After about ten minutes of that, she froze when she heard the sleepy Time Lord speak.

“Please, River.” he sighed, his voice showing just how weary he was. “Just… just go to sleep.”

“Right.” she whispered. “Sorry.” But she still tossed around for another few minutes, before the Doctor took matters into his own hands.

He sat up in bed, running a hand through his messy hair and stifling a yawn before saying, “Come here.” 

She moved closer, and was slightly surprised when he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her in closer so that her back was pressed up against his chest. His arms were wrapped around her waist, and she felt oddly… secure.

That night was the first night in her life that she didn’t have a single nightmare.

8888

He remembered her in his dreams.

She was always there. Every time he laid down, without fail. 

The dreams would always start off the same way - she would come into his life again, in a whirlwind of red lipstick and high heels. They would go on an adventure, save people, stop the bad guys - do an awful lot of running. Go back into the TARDIS to do things that had made him blush horribly when he was younger - and that still made him blush, although admittedly not as bad. 

That’s when everything would go wrong. One second he would be holding his wife in his arms, and the next….. he was handcuffed to a pole in the Library, watching as his curly-haired temptress hooked herself into C.A.L. to save 4,022 people. Pleading with her to stop, to let him take her place, to do anything to keep her from going through with it. 

Then she would tell him not to worry, that everything would be okay: 

It's okay. It's okay, it's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run! 

That was when he would wake up. In the past, the easiest way to fix things after a nightmare would be to go find his bespoke psychopath at some point in her timestream and take her out for the night. But then he had used up all of their time together, and now there was no more to be spent. 

Except with her ghost. 

Now, every time that he woke up from a nightmare in a cold sweat, with tears streaming down his face, she was there. Only a hallucination, he assumed - he refused to let himself believe that she was anything else. He refused to get his hopes up, only to crush them when he realized he was wrong. So he let her voice soothe him, let her words work their magic like they always did. 

Only now he couldn’t wrap her in his arms. He couldn’t bury his nose in her wild curls and breathe in the scent of gunsmoke, jasmine, and something else that was unmistakably River Song.

It was driving him mad - he was becoming a true madman in a box.

8888 

The Doctor hated sleeping now more than ever. There was nothing to stop him from dreaming of the Time War anymore - no mane of wild curls to bury his face in after waking up screaming. Now, to add to his nightmares, there were dreams of his wife dying. He had had those dreams all throughout their marriage, but now he couldn’t wake up and hold her to reassure himself that they still had time. Now he woke up alone in a cold and empty bed, and cried until he couldn’t cry anymore.

He hated sleep.


End file.
